For many years, the campsite known as Travelers’ Rest was thought to be at the confluence of today’s Lolo Creek and the Bitterroot River, one and a half miles east of this area, but in 1996 members of the Travelers’ Rest Chapter of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation began to suspect it was here instead. Historical archaeologist Dan Hall focused research on the area just south of Lolo Creek and used remote sensing equipment such as metal detectors and magnetometers to identify places where the soil’s magnetic properties had been altered. Archaeologists excavated these anomalies in the summer of 2002 and found evidence of the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s cookfire and latrine. Analysis of soil from the latrine revealed mercury vapor, residue from Dr. Rush’s Thunderbolts, a powerful purgative commonly prescribed to ailing members of the expedition. This physical evidence is accepted as proof that this is the location of the Corps of Discovery’s campsite. Based on these findings, the National Park Service moved the boundaries of the Travelers’ Rest National Historic Landmark to this site in 2006. Excavation also revealed charcoal carbon dated to the time of the Expedition, a military uniform button, one blue glass trading bead, and a spilled piece of lead sourced to a region of Kentucky that was producing lead for the military when Meriwether Lewis was preparing for the journey.